CLEVELAND — If you mention the words "tariff" or "trade war" to an Ohio farmer, and they're likely to take you back to 2018 when a trade war with China essentially led to the loss of Ohio's biggest buyer of soybeans almost overnight when China slapped a retaliatory 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybeans.
It's a market that never really opened back up as China established new trade partners for soybeans.
"Right now, it's cheaper for them to buy in South America, so that's what they're doing. They're buying in South America, they're bypassing us," said Portage County Farmer Chuck Sayre. "They have been doing that for two, three years, so we haven't seen the results of China buying our product right now."
We first introduced you to Sayre in that 2018 trade war and have touched base with him from time to time to chronicle his progress in dealing with that, Covid, the war in Ukraine, and now tariffs again.
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"This round of tariffs is really going to hurt," Sayre said of the tariffs the U.S. leveled against goods coming in from China, Mexico and Canada, which prompted retaliatory tariffs in return.
The soybean market is still strong in the U.S., but like many farmers, Sayre increased the amount of corn he's growing, which will be impacted in this round.
"[The] corn market is pretty good right now, except the tariffs now are affecting Mexico, and Mexico takes a bunch of our corn. So this last week, our corn markets have really taken a hit because of these tariffs."
And it comes at a time when the Ohio Farm Bureau says they've seen net farm income over the last three years decline by about 30%.
"So farmers are already reeling from what they're seeing with commodity prices," said Ty Higgins of the Ohio Farm Bureau's. "We saw corn prices in 2024 that equaled that of 1974 so the picture income wise on the farm has not been pretty for a while and this certainly doesn't do it any favors."
And Sayre will tell you while income's down, the costs continue to go up on equipment, repairs, fertilizer, and yes, like the rest of us, property taxes.
"Just this past few weeks we've got our property taxes in. They've tripled, our property taxes have tripled," he said.
The one thing farmers have on their side is time. The crops that will be planted in late April and early May won't be harvested til the fall, with some of the product not going to market until next year. The hope is that by the time it does, the tariffs will be gone.
Movement Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick hinted Wednesday that President Trump is open to compromise.
"I think they'll be some movement that will not eliminate the tarrifs," said Lutnick "but it might modify the tariff somewhat."
Sayre plans to plant corn in a third of his fields and most of the remaining two-thirds soybeans with a little wheat mixed in. As he waits to get the season started, he leans heavily on the one thing that is required of any farmer, optimism.
"We're going to get through it," he said. "It's going to be painful here for a while, but the lights at the end of the tunnel you know. We'll get better prices. We saw it last time and we're going to see it again."
